Game Of Thrones confirmed to return for seven episodes with delayed start in 2017

The seventh season of Game Of Thrones has been confirmed to return next summer for seven episodes.

It had long been reported that the show would return for a shortened season and HBO have now confirmed this.

In a statement issued to Deadline, Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming, said: "Now that winter has arrived on Game Of Thrones, executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing. Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule."

The show's sixth season, which has just finished its run on television, will be released on DVD on November 21st this year, a change from the previous routine which had seen the DVD coming out only a few weeks before the following season hit TV screens.